Toshiba May Increase Damages Sought in SK Hynix Lawsuit

July 23 (Bloomberg) -- Toshiba Corp. said it may increase
the damages it is seeking from SK Hynix Inc. over claims the
South Korean semiconductor maker wrongfully acquired information
related to memory chips.

Toshiba filed a 109 billion yen ($1 billion) civil suit in
March with the Tokyo District Court after a former technician
left a company it partners with to make flash-memory chips in
2008 and joined SK Hynix. The technician was arrested in March
in Japan under suspicion of leaking research data to the South
Korean company.

The lawsuit comes amid intensifying competition among
chipmakers and a push among companies to squeeze more money from
technical innovations and the protection of patents through
litigation or the licensing of rights to third-party firms.

“The amount we are seeking now is 109.151 billion yen,”
Tatsuro Oishi, a Tokyo-based spokesman for Toshiba, said by
phone. “But this is not all. The amount could increase in the
process of the lawsuit.”

Son Hee Young, a Seoul-based spokesman for SK Hynix,
declined to comment.

Toshiba, which helped pioneer technology to develop and
produce memory chips, competes with Samsung Electronics Co. and
others in the market for so-called Nand flash memory, chips that
act as storage for data in phones, tablets and some personal
computers.

Toshiba added 0.3 percent to close at 469.2 yen in Tokyo
trading, extending a 6.2 percent gain this year. SK Hynix lost 3
percent to 49,450 won in Seoul today.